3 Ways to Wipe Out Potty Training Mess

Here are some helpful ideas to make potty training a snap.

Potty training is tough under the best of circumstances. (The best circumstance being that your kid trains herself overnight. That happens, right?). You want to keep it clean and easy, but you also don’t want to give your kid “issues.” Here are some helpful ideas to make potty training a snap — or at least make for a good status update. (But probably not on Pinterest.)

1. Distract hands. Kids are always trying to touch everything, everywhere, at all times, no matter what it is. So if you can distract their hands with a constant stream of toys, crackling wrappers, a piece of dental floss — ANYTHING that will distract them for one moment — you’ll save yourself the cleanup of some unappealing wall art.

2. Put on a show. Any parent who has potty trained knows about the endless hours spent sitting in the bathroom and … waiting. Why not pass the time with some entertaining distraction? Besides, if your kid hates your tap dancing to ’80s hits routine, maybe they’ll actually finish up and move on.

3. Put down a tarp. This is either one step before giving up or the greatest recycling idea ever. But as a last resort, you can do what people with birds have learned long ago: line the cage bathroom with old newspaper, a tarp or anything you can roll the mess up into and toss. And it’s as if it never happened.

Hopefully this straight poop will help you keep the poopcleaning straight. It’s potty time!